[pvrusb2] saa7115 1-0021: Video signal: bad

[Mike Isely]

On Tue, 26 Feb 2008, dan wrote:

> Mike Isely wrote:
> >   
> >
> >
> > OK, that is an mplayer problem does a driver problem.  The mplayer 
> > program supports multiple output back-ends and it either can't figure 
> > out what to use or what it is choosing isn't working.  Run "mplayer -vo 
> > help" and you'll get a list of all the choices.  Two choices that are 
> > likely to work in all cases are "-vo x11" and "-vo xv".  The second 
> > choice is preferred because then it will be able to scale the video 
> > using a hardware scaler on the GPU.  But if "-vo xv" doesn't work then 
> > certainly "-vo x11" will.  I also suggest you find some nice mpg video 
> > clips somewhere and just try to play those with mplayer.  Then you can 
> > debug mplayer issues separate from pvrusb2 driver issues.  Once you have 
> > something that works, you can write these options into ~/.mplayer/config 
> > (or something like that).  Check the man page for mplayer to find out 
> > more details about all of this.  I wouldn't even bother with kmplayer 
> > until mplayer itself is working first.
> >
> >   -Mike
> >
> >   
> I don't know why I keep trying this!!!!!!
> 
> kmplayer gives me more info to work with and I don't know mplayer 
> commands, etc.

Well I don't know kmplayer so there's really not much I can do to help 
you there.  While I understand your frustration with mplayer (it does 
have a hairy command line interface), it's what I know and documented.

With that said, if anyone cares to document what it takes to get 
kmplayer to work, I'll add it to the documentation.  But until then I 
can't help you.


> 
> I have the wintv box connected to a coax cable source and also to a 
> composite source. Neither of these will play "TV" in linux (mepis). 
> Kmplayer (mplayer) plays avi, jpeg, wmv files and streaming video 
> (utube) with no problem.

And I see you don't have mpeg format in that list, which is what the 
driver is going to give you.


> 
> The handbook with kmplayer recommends: 1- start kmplayer from console, 2 
> - try play then capture mplayer -wid1234567 etc and paste to another 
> console.
> 
> This is what I get when I do that:
> 
> :~$ kmplayer
> QGDict::hashKeyString: Invalid null key
> QGDict::hashKeyString: Invalid null key
> kmplayer: ERROR: : couldn't create slave : Unable to create io-slave:
> klauncher said: Unknown protocol ''.
> kmplayer:
> mplayer -wid 50332603 -slave  -vo xv,sdl,x11 -ao alsa,oss,sdl,arts 
> -framedrop driver=v4l -vf pp=lb -contrast 0 -brightness 0 -hue 0 
> -saturation 0 -tv 
> noaudio:driver=v4l2:device=/dev/video0:input=2:width=48:height=32 -slave 
> -nocache -quiet 'tv://' -identify
> eval gui_play
> 
> 
> I found this in the mplayer man pages:
> 
> -pvr <option1:option2:...> (PVR only)
>               This option tunes various encoding properties of the PVR 
> capture
>               module.  It has to be used with any hardware MPEG encoder  
> based
>               card   supported  by  the  V4L2  driver.   The  Hauppauge  
> WinTV
>               PVR-150/250/350/500 and all IVTV based cards are  known  
> as  PVR
>               capture cards.  Be aware that only Linux 2.6.18 kernel and 
> above
>               is able to handle MPEG stream through V4L2 layer.  For  
> hardware
>               capture of an MPEG stream and watching it with 
> MPlayer/MEncoder,
>               use 'pvr://' as a movie URL.
> 
> ************************************************************
> changed 'tv://' to 'pvr://'------------------------:
> ************************************************************
> 
> ~$ mplayer -wid 37750035 -slave  -vo xv,sdl,x11 -ao alsa,oss,sdl,arts 
> -framedrop driver=v4l -vf pp=lb -contrast 0 -brightness 0 -hue 0 
> -saturation 0 -tv 
> noaudio:driver=v4l2:device=/dev/video0:input=2:width=48:height=32 -slave 
> -nocache -quiet 'pvr://' -identify

The documentation on the pvrusb2 website regarding mplayer usage gives 
specific directions about what to do here.  There's no way, for example, 
that tv:// is going to work and pvr:// might work.  Try one of these:

mplayer -vo xv /dev/video0

mplayer -vo x11 /dev/video0

Usually the device name should be /dev/vidoe0, but some distributions 
will set that up as /dev/v4l/video0.  Not being familiar with the 
distribution you are using, I can't be sure.  But if if were the other 
way, then I'd try:

mplayer -vo xv /dev/v4l/video0

mplayer -vo x11 /dev/v4l/video0

As I said in the driver documentation, you have to tell mplayer to treat 
the device as a normal mpeg file, NOT a v4l device, thus you just spell 
out the device name as if it were any old file.  The pvr:// bit might 
work - others have had success - but it's not how I test so I can't tell 
you right this instant if that works.



> 
> MPlayer 1.0rc1-4.1.2-DFSG-free (C) 2000-2006 MPlayer Team
> CPU: Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.80GHz (Family: 15, Model: 2, Stepping: 9)
> CPUflags:  MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 1 SSE2: 1
> Compiled with runtime CPU detection.
> mplayer: could not connect to socket
> mplayer: No such file or directory
> Failed to open LIRC support. You will not be able to use your remote 
> control.
> 
> Playing driver=v4l.
> File not found: 'driver=v4l'
> Failed to open driver=v4l.
> 
> 
> Playing pvr://.
> [pvr] Using device /dev/video0
> [pvr] Detected Hauppauge WinTV pvr-usb2
> [v4l2] Available video inputs: '#0, television' '#1, s-video' '#2, 
> composite' '#3, radio'
> [v4l2] Available audio inputs: '#0, PVRUSB2 Audio'
> [v4l2] Available norms: '#0, PAL-M' '#1, PAL-N' '#2, PAL-Nc' '#3, 
> NTSC-M' '#4, NTSC-Mj' '#5, NTSC-Mk'
> [v4l2] Video input: television
> [v4l2] Audio input: PVRUSB2 Audio
> [pvr] failed with errno 22 when reading 2048 bytes
> [pvr] read 0 bytes
> .
> .
> .pvr] failed with errno 22 when reading 2048 bytes
> [pvr] read 0 bytes
> Win32 LoadLibrary failed to load: avisynth.dll, 
> /usr/lib/codecs/avisynth.dll, /usr/lib/win32/avisynth.dll, 
> /usr/local/lib/win32/avisynth.dll
> [pvr] failed with errno 2 when reading 2048 bytes
> [pvr] read 0 bytes
> .
> .
> .
> 
> [pvr] failed with errno 2 when reading 2048 bytes
> [pvr] read 0 bytes
> 
> Exiting... (End of file)
> 
> This is too much for an old brain to absorb.....When I take in new I 
> have to dump something old.....It just frustrates me for windows to work 
> and linux not.....!!!!!!!

Let's take this offline.  This smells a lot like an mplayer setup 
problem.  There are certainly a bunch of basic things we can try one at 
a time to see what is going wrong.  To solve this we need to go at this 
systematically and understand what is going on at each step of the way.  
Right now I get the impression that you're just stabbing at this and of 
course getting nowhere.  Do you have an IM account?  Please e-mail me at 
isely at pobox.com so we can coordinate this.

  -Mike


-- 

Mike Isely
isely @ pobox (dot) com
PGP: 03 54 43 4D 75 E5 CC 92 71 16 01 E2 B5 F5 C1 E8